Tag Archives: Great Egret

Post navigation

Here are a few favourite subjects that have unwittingly posed for my camera.

The Lion with its huge mane and majestic appearance, has to be the indisputable King of Beasts.

The gorgeous Cheetah can run faster than any other land animal, and has the ability to accelerate from 0-100 km/h in just three seconds. This one was just relaxing at the side of the road as we stopped to admire her.

The exotic Toucan is famous for its brightly coloured bill. It always makes me smile to see nature’s proudest and most impressive schnoz which is about 30- 40% of its total body area. Aren’t you glad that your nose isn’t that huge? 🙂

This beautiful Eagle Owl was a most inscrutable poser ever. Couldn’t get him to smile for the camera at all.

The birds are flocking down to spend the winter in Florida. Here you see the Wood Stork posing with his good friend Snowy.

The Great Egret is always stalking around in my back yard.

I really think that animals and birds are such great subjects to photograph, because even if they don’t smile and haven’t done their hair and makeup, they always look perfect.

Ed’s Sunday Stllls Challenge this week, Is ‘Birds’, and I currently have such a lot of bird pics which I’ve taken at nature reserves close by, but I’ll save those for another post, and just show you the regulars in my back yard.

When we got back to Florida a month ago, Mr Great Blue Heron was the only bird around here, and had the place to himself. Here you see him surveying his territory.

It wasn’t long before his friend the Great Egret arrived back from his summer holidays up north, and started searching around the foliage for a few tasty tidbits.

He didn’t find anything worthwhile in our garden, so decided to try next door where there are more hiding places for frogs and lizards.

A not too frequent, but very welcome visitor, is this Wood Stork, who was just strutting over to start up a conversation with Mr Mottled Duck.

Suddenly out of nowhere, Mrs Duck arrived to tell hubby it was time to leave, and off they went, sailing across the water.

The other evening, a Common Gallinule was perched on the roof of our neighbours’ verandah. He was sitting so straight and still that he could have been mistaken for a weather vane.

Today, as I was typing this post, a merry band of Snowys arrived to try their luck in the neighbours shrubs. I had to sneak this pic through the window, as they are very timid. Maybe that’s why they tend to go around in groups…….. safety in numbers.

I’m not very good at photographing birds in flight, but I did manage to catch the Great Blue last night as it flew off across the water.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my back yard birds. To see more entries for Ed’s photo challenge, just click here.

I don’t have too many photos with interesting reflections, and I had used most of them for Jake’s Sunday Post ‘Reflections’ challenge, but here are just a few more that I found lurking in my photo file.

No prizes for guessing where this one was taken. Of course it’s owned by the guy with the most famous comb-over in the world. 🙂 When it was completed in 1983, this 58-storey skyscraper on 5th Avenue Lower Manhattan, was the tallest building in the world. Donald Trump lives in the penthouse of course, and other residential parts of the building are occupied by some of the wealthy elite of New York.

In complete contrast to Mr Trump, here is another duck, although this handsome fellow would rather be called a Great Egret. He is usually the first bird I see every morning, as I look out of my bedroom window.

Here is some of the a lovely countryside, on our journey from Umhlanga to the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa.

This one was also taken in the same area.

This image taken in our Jeep, shows just how hot our South African summers can get. Thanks goodness for air-con. I can’t make out the weird reflection, but I suppose it must be me taking the photo. I don’t usually look like that. 🙂

Lastly, I was looking through some photos of our son’s wedding at Lake Tahoe, and found this one of me about to make my ‘descent from the clouds’ into the garden where the ceremony was to be held. I had never noticed the sky reflection before. 🙂

If you’d like to see what other bloggers have come up with for the theme, just click here.